Mobile flows, storage, and self-organized institutions for governing common-pool resources: comment

In their recent article, "Mobile Flows, Storage, and Self Organized Institutions for Governing Common-Pool Resources," Schlager, Blomquist, and Tang (1994; here- after referred to as SBT) argue that mobility and storage of flows are important charac- teristics of common-pool resources. They propose a typology of common-pool re- sources based on those characteristics. They apply their arguments and typology to fish- eries, irrigation systems, and groundwater basins and imply that the arguments are generally valid. I considered the validity of their arguments in general and with specific reference to common property regimes for African rangelands. I noted several limita- tions in conceptualization that are likely to result in errors in application. First, the language and concepts that SBT use-for example, common-pool resources -stresses the physical characteristics of the resources and their flows. In fact, they are concerned with factors that motivate people to be members of common property regimes (unfortunately also represented by the ab- breviation CPR), the types of problems that confront members of common property regimes, and the governance structures that the members create.

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